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At the very beginning of Cloud Nine, I expected a standard play about the struggles and tribulations of a British family in Victorian England. The characters were dressed well, clearly from an aristocratic family, and singing with admiration toward the flag of their empire. However, as the characters became more fleshed-out and the act progressed, I noticed that Cloud Nine was much more than that. The characters were not standard in any way; Betty, the wife of the family, was played by a man, Edward, Clive’s son, was played by a woman, and the black servant Joshua was played by a white man. The characters were all caricatures, deliberate opposites, of the people they represented, and it served exposition surprisingly well.
I didn’t really understand Act II very well, so it was more difficult to enjoy than Act I. The idea of breaking gender roles was still prevalent, shown by Cathy’s fascination with weapons. However, I didn’t understand how Victoria’s character fit into the storyline of Act II, and how Act II connected to Act I.
I very much agree with your impression of the performance. Act II was definitely a bit harder to follow than Act I. For me, I think that a lot of the difficulty came from not getting a clear perception of time and setting in the second Act. We are told in the description of the play that it is now in the 1970s in London, but for the characters only 25 years have passed. This was an odd concept to wrap my head around, and if it weren’t for that description, I doubt I would have picked up on that at all in the performance.
The gender roles in both acts definitely did stand out though, and I feel that the second act really gave way from the first act by showing that now there was more freedom to explore other realms of love and affection. Despite that, though, I found it interesting that the characters that did break out of their shells to explore other loves, like Victoria and Cathy, ended up not being as happy as expected, bringing a sense of irony to the title Cloud Nine. And personally, I feel that Victoria’s character showed the progression of the female over many years. In the first act, she was represented as a doll, the perfect daughter because she never spoke for herself. In the second act, she starts to take the reign on her own life, but despite the fact that we are in a whole new era, she still has to deal with an oppressive patriarchal institution.
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